The best way to proceed is to give careful consideration to the donor’s critiques and decide whether you should reapply or not. Before you decide what to do, you need to determine whether the application is fixable.

How to Decide What to Do

• Contact the Program Officer for feedback. Ask him/her: (1) what his/her assessment of your proposal is; (2) whether the panel reviewers were enthusiastic about your idea; (3) if there are additional problems not addressed in the reviewer’s summary document sent to you; and (4) what your options may be.
• If the reviewers noted many fixable problems, it is good news, as it demonstrates that they are interested in your idea and that the application is worth fixing.
• If you have to revise more than 50% of your proposal, it is best to rewrite it altogether. If the revisions required are less extensive, then it is best to follow the rules for an amended application.
• If the scores of your proposal are strong, consider amending and resubmitting as soon as possible.

How You Should Proceed

• If your decision is to revise the original application, you should retain most of what you submitted, while addressing the reviewers’ concerns. That way, the next review group will look at the application in the context of the previous critiques and how you addressed them.
• In the resubmission, capitalize on your strengths and eliminate or revise the noted weaknesses.
• Respond to all reviewers’ comments and suggestions, even if you disagree with some. If you disagree, explain why and, if possible, provide additional information.
• Add new findings and make adjustments that you believe will strengthen your proposal.
• Address all items mentioned in the summary statement sent to you; however, remember that you are not limited to those.
• There is always the possibility of not resubmitting right away. The reasons might be: (1) you need to wait until you have the strongest possible application; and (2) you need time to polish your application.

Ultimately, the decision to resubmit depends on the various factors mentioned above. If the application has flaws outside of the idea itself, you should fix them and proceed with a resubmission. If, on the other hand, the idea is flawed, weak or not innovative, you should go back to the drawing board.

Most importantly, you should not be discouraged, as success rates for first submissions can be as low as 12%; thus, you are not alone. The encouraging news is that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has anecdotal evidence that applicants who resubmit have as much as 50% greater chance of being funded.

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You are not alone. Even seasoned researchers have only a 50 percent chance of winning a grant. If you are new to grant writing, the success rate is much lower. Statistically, new grant writers submit between 2.2 – 3 proposals before being funded. In some cases, the award rate might be as low as 12 percent. Still, after your first rejection, don’t wait. Seek the advice of an experienced grantee, then rewrite and resubmit your proposal. If you are not funded after the second submission, it may be that your research or project may have some serious flaws or simply cannot compete against other applicants.

Contact the Program Officer

Your program officer is well aware of your project and what happened during the review process. He or she can guide you to a successful resubmission by giving you invaluable information on how your grant was reviewed, and the flaws that the reviewers believed could be remedied. Your program officer will be your best partner over the course of your resubmission process. Ask him or her about what the reviewers thought were some of the greatest strengths of the grants they reviewed, as well as the greatest flaws. Lastly, ask him or her for constructive comments about your proposal.

Listen to Your Reviewers

Try to listen to what the reviewers have written. Negative comments can occur for several reasons. Your proposal might have had serious flaws, or the reviewers could have found the proposal difficult to read and so could not find where you addressed the scoring criteria. In some cases, some reviewers might have been highly critical while others praised your idea. However, don’t use the praise of one or two reviewers as a reason to mentally dismiss the concerns of the whole panel.

High Risk and Outside-the-Box Research

If your proposal had excellent science, was well written, and had support from your institution, it may have been rejected for being too risky for the donor to invest their funding. This is especially the case when compared to other excellent, less risky but high-benefit applications. If the former is the case, look into foundations that would be willing to fund a high-risk, but high-benefit project for a portion of your work. Once you have secured their funding, resubmit to the more competitive federal agencies.

Don’t Hurry the Resubmission

Your inclination might be to resubmit as soon as possible. This may not be the best approach, since you need to give careful thought to the reviewers’ comments and address them carefully. Be certain that the significance of your research was not the main criticism. If it was, you may want to give your full attention to this area. Whatever the reason, take the time to resubmit your very best work and take the reviewers’ criticisms into account.

Respond to the Reviewers’ Page

Be courteous and appropriately brief in addressing the reviewers’ comments. Under no circumstances imply that the reviewers were incompetent, even if you think they were. Instead, just address the most important criticisms in a factual, objective, and professional manner. This will always impress the panelists and could even win them over.

Become a Grant Panelist

Grantees should always wear two hats when writing their proposals. The first is the requester’s hat and the second is the evaluator’s hat. In order to gain experience and insight into the review process, serve on a grant panel. Once you are fully aware of the review process, it will reinforce good practices and correct bad habits in your own applications and writing.

Samuel Johnson said, “Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.” New grant writers should strive to live by this phrase, which experienced researchers already know to be true. In this way, your proposal’s rejection can be a great motivation to provide your best effort for the resubmission.

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